Franco-American Union (UFA)
Central Fund-raising organization founded at Paris in 1875 by Edourard de Laboulaye to finance the construction of the statue of Liberty and its pedestal. The Union was the official name of the unified French Commmittee in Paris and the American Committies in New York, Philadelphia, and Boston. Laboulaye was both president of the UFA and chairman of the French Committee, the governing board for the whole organization. Members of honor were the marquis de Rochambeau, the marquis de Noailles, Elihu Washburne, Amedee Bartholdi, and John W.Forney. Vice president were senators Henri Martin, and C.F. Dietz-Monnin. Jean-Francois Bozerian was chairman of the statue of Liberty Lottery Commission and Count Serurier served as the director of administration. Other key members were Oscar de Layfayette, Jules de Lasteyrie, Paul de Remusat, count Hippolyte de Tocqueville, W. H. Waddington, Cornelis de Witt, Jean Mace Louis Wolowski, Louis-Laurent Simonin, Victor Borie and August Bartholdi. Also included on excecutive rosters were Maitre A. Caubert of Rounen. J.de Castro and Georges A. Glaenzer shared the office of secretary while Pierre de la Gorce was treasurer. Upon Laboulaye's death in May 1883, the Union selected Viscount Ferdinand de Lesseps to fill the presidency.
The American Committee in New York bore the responsibility for the entire natinal fund-raising campaign in the United States. William M.Evarts chaired it. The Philadelphia Committee was formed separately by Colonel John W. Forney and others in the autumn of 1876; however its members lost interest after it became clear that the statue of liberty could not be built in their city. The Boston Committee was successful fund-raiser due to Nathan Appleton, Joseph Lasigi and others.
Laboulaye, Edouard (Rene Lafebvre)
b. 18 January 1811 Paris Fance
d. 25 May 1883 Paris France
Jurist historian politician. Founder and first president of the Franco-American Union;chairman of the french committee. Laboulaye was the creator of the Statue of Liberty and developed it into a public monument with the assistance of sculptor August Bartholdi.
Laboulaye was the son of Auguste Rene Lefebvre de Laboulaye and Aglae Charlotte Juliette Martinon de Laboulaye. Originally from Auvergne , his paternal grandfather Jean-Baptiste Rene Lefebvre de la Boulaye rose to social dignity as His Majesty's Secretary in the Grand Chancellery of France 1778-88. This high office conferred hereditary nobility on the family evident in their use of "de". Laboulaye was married twice. His first wife was Virginie Paradis (married 1832. d. 24 june 1841) Their sons were Paul (b. 1833) who became a diplomat and Rene (b. 1835) who became a civil servant in the Finance Ministry and rose to the position of director of the Posts and Telegraph Administration. His second marriage (1844) was to Micheline Troncon du Coudray with whom he had a son , Lucien (b. 1845) Micheline de Laboulaye headed the women's division of the French Anti-Slavery Society and was the author of a biography of Joan of Arc.
Laboulaye became France's leading Americanist following the death of Alexis de Toequeville in 1857. He had established his credentials as his country's expert on the U.S. Constitution offering the first course ever taught in a French college on that subject in December 1849. In 1865 August Bartholdi was invited to a dinner party at Laboulaye's estate at Glatigny near Versailles. Bartholdi found himself somewhat out of his depth , as such distinguished liberal politicians and intelectuals as Count Charles de Remusat, Count Agenor de Gasparin and Henri Martin surrounded him. It was then that Laboulaye first discussed the idea of giving a monument to the United States to honor its independence from Great Britain. This idea flowed from a general discussion regarding the gratitude of nations. Laboulaye held the view that the relations between France and Italy were largely governed by political conflict, while this was quite absent in the relations of France and America, between which there was a genuine sympathetic bond.
Laboulaye proposed that the French and Americans should join together to build a commemorative monument that would pay tribute to the hundred years of friendship of the two nations. this view may have been provoked by a combination of events in the United States: the abolition of slavery, the victory of the United States in the civil war, and the assassination of President Abraham Lincoln. But Laboulaye was not ready to act; Napoleon III was still emperor, and he did not want to run afoul of the regime , so the matter was dropped until the end of the Second Empire. In 1871, Bartholdi was once more a dinner guest at Glatigny, surrounded by Laboulaye and his liberal political allies. The company included Oscar de Lafayette, Louis Wolowski, Count Charles de Remusat and Count de Gasparin. But the combination of the Egyptian failure and the loss of the Franco-Prussian War and the Germanization of Alsace-Lorraine had changed him. Bartholdi was more experienced and now ready to accept the unusual comminssion of Laboulaye. The scholar reiterated his conceptions for a monument to American liberty and independence. While Bartholdi accepted Laboulaye's statue of Liberty and Independence, Laboulaye was forced to acquiesce to the sculptor's obsession of making a colossus of it. Convinced that this concession would keep the sculptor motivated and ensure that the commission would be carried out in the end, Laboulaye dispatched the artist to the United Stateswith letters of introduction to his circle of friends at the Union League Club and elsewhere. Enthusiastically Laboulaye declared that Liberty would have a "body of iron and a soul of fire."
Laboulaye's early intellecutual views were influenced by the methodical discipline of the German historical school. He wrote a book on the great German legal scholar Friedrich von Savigny. However liberal writers such as Benjamin Constant , Alexis de Tocqueville, Paul Royer-Collard, and Alexandre Vinet were more important in shaping his political views. He also developed a deep and abiding interest in the legal institutions of European antiquity, especially those of Rome. He produced a fine historical study on the legal status of women. He also continued his close study of Roman law in his next book. Further he was a frequent contributor to his friend Wolowski's legal journal. His interest in contemporary legal problems seems to have arisen as a result of the revolution of 1848 and the overthrow of the liberal Orleanist monarch King Louis-Philippe. He served on two government comminssions: one to study education and the other regarding constitutional matters. He soon resigned from both comminssions for, among, other things. he was disappointed with the Constitution of the Second Republic, a document that provided for only a single chamber parliament. Strongly preferring a two chamber legislature, Laboulaye argued that such a constitutional arrangement would fall prey to extremism. The Napoleonic coup d'etat of 1851 introduced political censorship and restored the monarchy. These various events directed Laboulaye's scholarly interest toward modern democratic institutions in particular the study of the U.S. Constitution. He began writing his histoire des Etats-unis a work filled with the philosophy and the thoughts that would create his Statue of Liberty. It is a literary equivalent of the monument. But Laboulaye and his group were confronted by the spector of the Second Empire that threatened those who sought to promote liberal ideas. He watched as his bolder liberal colleagues at the College de France were one by one dismissed; this was a warning to Laboulaye, and he took it seriously. He restriced his college lectures to the constitutions of ancient Roman and Gaulish, Teutonic, Merovingian. and Salic legal and political institutions.
During this period Laboulaye come under the influence of three American writers: William Channing. Horace Mann, and Benjamin Franklin. Many of his ideas about the United States wer derived from a study of their works. He wrote abundantly about them, producing translations, essays. articles, and books. Channings view on slavery had a profound effect on Laboulaye and they prepared him for the role he was to play as an abolitionist and supporter of President Abraham Lincoln and the Union cause during the Civil War.Laboulaye concurred with Horace Mann's views that better education for the masses was the way to solve socail ills. Laboulaye said, "Establish schools, and you chase away ignorance, crime and misery,and you diminish hatred, for you will make the country wealthy and great by the well being, morality and happiness of each." Benjamin Franklin's moral and economic writings deeply impressed Laboulaye. He liked Franklin for teaching people to reconcile themselves to duty and good conduct. All of these writers but especially Channing inspired Laboulaye to venture into politics. His first try was in 1863 when he declared that he would stand for the imperial parliment known as the Legislative Assembly for a constituency in Paris. But he withdrew when the liberal ex-premier Adolphe Thiers entered the race. In 1864, Laboulaye, standing in a parlimentary by election campaigned for the principles of democracy and liberty and proclaimed, "Each citizen is master and responsible for his own action and for his life, it is the rule of law in place of the rule of government. I ask for freedom for all, freedome of the person, of the Church, of the school, of the commune, of the department and, above all else, the freedom of the press which is the organ of the public conscience, the incomparable means of popular education and controlling all powers and is the supreme guarantor of all rights." Further, he advocated self-government for the city of Paris. He was endorsed enthusiastically by the Journal des Debats which noted that he represented the old liberal traditions of Alexis de Tocquville, Benjamin Constant, and Paul Royer-Collard. Notwithstanding this support he was nevertheless defeated badly running a distant third. undaunted the great scholar again stood for Legislative Assembly for the 1866 elections; he contested a seat from a constituency in the Lower Rhine department in Alsace. But in spite of generous financial and moral assistance from his friend , the liberal legisator Emile Olllivier, he again was defeated.
Laboulaye made a last and equally unsccussful bid for a Legisative Assembly seat in the Seine-et-Oise department in the 1869 elections. At about the same time, the government began to relax its firm hold over the natuon. From 1867 to 1869 the Emperor Napoleon introduced a series of liberal reforms. In 1869 he appointed Ollivier prime minister and in a May 1870 plebiscite the French people approved a new liberal constitution for the empirre by a vote of 7,358,786 with only 1,571,939 opposed. During the preelection campaign, Laboulaye abandoned his more radical republican colleagues and urged a vote in favor of the new constitution, for he saw in it a genuine move toward parlimentary democracy. However he was denounced by his abandoned collegeues and in the fracas was compelled to suspend his classes at the College de France. Aftyer the plebiscite, Prime Minister Ollivier , in forming a new cabinet , seriously considered Laboulaye for a ministerial post, but the emperor was unfavorable.
When Paris was besiged during thr Franco-Prussian War, Laboulaye left the city and went to Normandy, where he organized ambulances. Upon his return , he found that his house had been occupied by Prussian troops and curiously found that they had put his wife's crucifix in a place of prominence and decorated it with boughs. The fall of the second empire breathed new life into Laboulayes's political ambitions, and he was elected to the newly established National Assembly for a Parisian constituency in the by-electoin of 2 July 1871. He took his seat with his fellow conservative republican deputies of the center gauche. Laboulaye assumed trhe chairmanship of the Parlimentary Commission on duacation and in 1873 was named to the influencial Committee of Thirty whose task was to draft a series of constitutionl docuaments that were destined to become the key provisions of the Constitution of the Third Republic. During parlimentary sessions in January 1875, Laboulaye and his ally Henri Wallon won national Assembly acceptance of a republican government for France. In February parliament passed legislation creating a second chamber - a 300 member senate , 225 of whom were to be indirectly elected by electoral colleges in the department. New laws also established the office of president of the Republic a Chamber of Deputies and the office of prime minister. In december 1875 Laboulaye was one of 75 men elected elected to be life senators. (this was a special honor) Laboulaye hailed the adoption of the new constitutional laws of France as a reflective of "the common right if free people"
In 1872 Laboulaye returned to his earlier interest in the condition of women. He demonstrated publicly his support of legal rights for women by presideing over a banquet given by the Women's Rights Association. The association advocated full legal rights and voting rights for women.
The achievements of these political aims gave Laboulaye freedim to return to his dream of building a Statue of Liberty. In 1875 granting final approval to Bartholdi's study model for the monument, Laboulaye and his liberal associates formed the Franco-American Union for the fund-raising campiagn and established its governing board, also known as the French Committee. The members included his collegues in the Senate and National Assembly. In July 1880, laboulaye ahd the Franco-American Union celebrated the completion of the campaign , having raised over 400.000 francs. But the sucess had come to late; Laboulaye did not live to come to America to unveil his Liberty Enlightening the World
Second Empire
French constitutional and political regime founded and ruled by emperor Napoleon III. Dec. 1852-Sept. 1870. Although the regime was passionately opposed on constitutinal and political grounds by legitimist monarchists, republicans, and liberals, it was nevertheless noteworthy for the development of large-scale industralization, massive improvements in communications and urban planning. The regime originated in a December 1851 coupd'etat in which Prince Louis Napoleon overthrew the democratic Second Republic , of which he was the elected president. He obtained overwhelming approval of his act through a plebiscite of 21-22 Nov. 1852
Under the second Empire, the emperor had dictatorial powers. Artical 14 of the Constitutional obliged him all members of parliment and assemblies, ministers, officers, magistrates, and civil servants to take an oath of personal allegiance to the emperor. Title 3 declared him head of state and commander of the armed forces, and it granted him extensive executive authority: the power to make war and peace , conclude treaties and alliances, make all appointments, and write up all policies and decrees. He was also given extensive legisative power: "he approves and promulgates laws and senatusd consultums" Artical 7 stated "Jusitce is administered in his name." The Emperor also had the right of declaring a state of seige in one or more departments. Cabinat ministers were not members of parliment but only imperial servants carrying out the emperors will.
Parliment consisted of three weak bodies, the popularly elected Corps Legislatif, the appointed Consil d'Etat and the Senate. which consisted of jure imperial princes, cardinals, marshals, admirals, and others appointed to the body for life by the emperor.
Between 1867 and 1870 the emperor began to democratize the constitutional system. The Second Empire ended when the emperor was taken prisoner by the enemy during the Franco-Prussian War in 1870. It was eventually replaced by the Third Republic (1875-1940)
Franco-American Union (UFA)
Central Fund-raising organization founded at Paris in 1875 by Edourard de Laboulaye to finance the construction of the statue of Liberty and its pedestal. The Union was the official name of the unified French Commmittee in Paris and the American Committies in New York, Philadelphia, and Boston. Laboulaye was both president of the UFA and chairman of the French Committee, the governing board for the whole organization. Members of honor were the marquis de Rochambeau, the marquis de Noailles, Elihu Washburne, Amedee Bartholdi, and John W.Forney. Vice president were senators Henri Martin, and C.F. Dietz-Monnin. Jean-Francois Bozerian was chairman of the statue of Liberty Lottery Commission and Count Serurier served as the director of administration. Other key members were Oscar de Layfayette, Jules de Lasteyrie, Paul de Remusat, count Hippolyte de Tocqueville, W. H. Waddington, Cornelis de Witt, Jean Mace Louis Wolowski, Louis-Laurent Simonin, Victor Borie and August Bartholdi. Also included on excecutive rosters were Maitre A. Caubert of Rounen. J.de Castro and Georges A. Glaenzer shared the office of secretary while Pierre de la Gorce was treasurer. Upon Laboulaye's death in May 1883, the Union selected Viscount Ferdinand de Lesseps to fill the presidency.
The American Committee in New York bore the responsibility for the entire natinal fund-raising campaign in the United States. William M.Evarts chaired it. The Philadelphia Committee was formed separately by Colonel John W. Forney and others in the autumn of 1876; however its members lost interest after it became clear that the statue of liberty could not be built in their city. The Boston Committee was successful fund-raiser due to Nathan Appleton, Joseph Lasigi and others.
Laboulaye, Edouard (Rene Lafebvre)
b. 18 January 1811 Paris Fance
d. 25 May 1883 Paris France
Jurist historian politician. Founder and first president of the Franco-American Union;chairman of the french committee. Laboulaye was the creator of the Statue of Liberty and developed it into a public monument with the assistance of sculptor August Bartholdi.
Laboulaye was the son of Auguste Rene Lefebvre de Laboulaye and Aglae Charlotte Juliette Martinon de Laboulaye. Originally from Auvergne , his paternal grandfather Jean-Baptiste Rene Lefebvre de la Boulaye rose to social dignity as His Majesty's Secretary in the Grand Chancellery of France 1778-88. This high office conferred hereditary nobility on the family evident in their use of "de". Laboulaye was married twice. His first wife was Virginie Paradis (married 1832. d. 24 june 1841) Their sons were Paul (b. 1833) who became a diplomat and Rene (b. 1835) who became a civil servant in the Finance Ministry and rose to the position of director of the Posts and Telegraph Administration. His second marriage (1844) was to Micheline Troncon du Coudray with whom he had a son , Lucien (b. 1845) Micheline de Laboulaye headed the women's division of the French Anti-Slavery Society and was the author of a biography of Joan of Arc.
Laboulaye became France's leading Americanist following the death of Alexis de Toequeville in 1857. He had established his credentials as his country's expert on the U.S. Constitution offering the first course ever taught in a French college on that subject in December 1849. In 1865 August Bartholdi was invited to a dinner party at Laboulaye's estate at Glatigny near Versailles. Bartholdi found himself somewhat out of his depth , as such distinguished liberal politicians and intelectuals as Count Charles de Remusat, Count Agenor de Gasparin and Henri Martin surrounded him. It was then that Laboulaye first discussed the idea of giving a monument to the United States to honor its independence from Great Britain. This idea flowed from a general discussion regarding the gratitude of nations. Laboulaye held the view that the relations between France and Italy were largely governed by political conflict, while this was quite absent in the relations of France and America, between which there was a genuine sympathetic bond.
Laboulaye proposed that the French and Americans should join together to build a commemorative monument that would pay tribute to the hundred years of friendship of the two nations. this view may have been provoked by a combination of events in the United States: the abolition of slavery, the victory of the United States in the civil war, and the assassination of President Abraham Lincoln. But Laboulaye was not ready to act; Napoleon III was still emperor, and he did not want to run afoul of the regime , so the matter was dropped until the end of the Second Empire. In 1871, Bartholdi was once more a dinner guest at Glatigny, surrounded by Laboulaye and his liberal political allies. The company included Oscar de Lafayette, Louis Wolowski, Count Charles de Remusat and Count de Gasparin. But the combination of the Egyptian failure and the loss of the Franco-Prussian War and the Germanization of Alsace-Lorraine had changed him. Bartholdi was more experienced and now ready to accept the unusual comminssion of Laboulaye. The scholar reiterated his conceptions for a monument to American liberty and independence. While Bartholdi accepted Laboulaye's statue of Liberty and Independence, Laboulaye was forced to acquiesce to the sculptor's obsession of making a colossus of it. Convinced that this concession would keep the sculptor motivated and ensure that the commission would be carried out in the end, Laboulaye dispatched the artist to the United Stateswith letters of introduction to his circle of friends at the Union League Club and elsewhere. Enthusiastically Laboulaye declared that Liberty would have a "body of iron and a soul of fire."
Laboulaye's early intellecutual views were influenced by the methodical discipline of the German historical school. He wrote a book on the great German legal scholar Friedrich von Savigny. However liberal writers such as Benjamin Constant , Alexis de Tocqueville, Paul Royer-Collard, and Alexandre Vinet were more important in shaping his political views. He also developed a deep and abiding interest in the legal institutions of European antiquity, especially those of Rome. He produced a fine historical study on the legal status of women. He also continued his close study of Roman law in his next book. Further he was a frequent contributor to his friend Wolowski's legal journal. His interest in contemporary legal problems seems to have arisen as a result of the revolution of 1848 and the overthrow of the liberal Orleanist monarch King Louis-Philippe. He served on two government comminssions: one to study education and the other regarding constitutional matters. He soon resigned from both comminssions for, among, other things. he was disappointed with the Constitution of the Second Republic, a document that provided for only a single chamber parliament. Strongly preferring a two chamber legislature, Laboulaye argued that such a constitutional arrangement would fall prey to extremism. The Napoleonic coup d'etat of 1851 introduced political censorship and restored the monarchy. These various events directed Laboulaye's scholarly interest toward modern democratic institutions in particular the study of the U.S. Constitution. He began writing his histoire des Etats-unis a work filled with the philosophy and the thoughts that would create his Statue of Liberty. It is a literary equivalent of the monument. But Laboulaye and his group were confronted by the spector of the Second Empire that threatened those who sought to promote liberal ideas. He watched as his bolder liberal colleagues at the College de France were one by one dismissed; this was a warning to Laboulaye, and he took it seriously. He restriced his college lectures to the constitutions of ancient Roman and Gaulish, Teutonic, Merovingian. and Salic legal and political institutions.
During this period Laboulaye come under the influence of three American writers: William Channing. Horace Mann, and Benjamin Franklin. Many of his ideas about the United States wer derived from a study of their works. He wrote abundantly about them, producing translations, essays. articles, and books. Channings view on slavery had a profound effect on Laboulaye and they prepared him for the role he was to play as an abolitionist and supporter of President Abraham Lincoln and the Union cause during the Civil War.Laboulaye concurred with Horace Mann's views that better education for the masses was the way to solve socail ills. Laboulaye said, "Establish schools, and you chase away ignorance, crime and misery,and you diminish hatred, for you will make the country wealthy and great by the well being, morality and happiness of each." Benjamin Franklin's moral and economic writings deeply impressed Laboulaye. He liked Franklin for teaching people to reconcile themselves to duty and good conduct. All of these writers but especially Channing inspired Laboulaye to venture into politics. His first try was in 1863 when he declared that he would stand for the imperial parliment known as the Legislative Assembly for a constituency in Paris. But he withdrew when the liberal ex-premier Adolphe Thiers entered the race. In 1864, Laboulaye, standing in a parlimentary by election campaigned for the principles of democracy and liberty and proclaimed, "Each citizen is master and responsible for his own action and for his life, it is the rule of law in place of the rule of government. I ask for freedom for all, freedome of the person, of the Church, of the school, of the commune, of the department and, above all else, the freedom of the press which is the organ of the public conscience, the incomparable means of popular education and controlling all powers and is the supreme guarantor of all rights." Further, he advocated self-government for the city of Paris. He was endorsed enthusiastically by the Journal des Debats which noted that he represented the old liberal traditions of Alexis de Tocquville, Benjamin Constant, and Paul Royer-Collard. Notwithstanding this support he was nevertheless defeated badly running a distant third. undaunted the great scholar again stood for Legislative Assembly for the 1866 elections; he contested a seat from a constituency in the Lower Rhine department in Alsace. But in spite of generous financial and moral assistance from his friend , the liberal legisator Emile Olllivier, he again was defeated.
Laboulaye made a last and equally unsccussful bid for a Legisative Assembly seat in the Seine-et-Oise department in the 1869 elections. At about the same time, the government began to relax its firm hold over the natuon. From 1867 to 1869 the Emperor Napoleon introduced a series of liberal reforms. In 1869 he appointed Ollivier prime minister and in a May 1870 plebiscite the French people approved a new liberal constitution for the empirre by a vote of 7,358,786 with only 1,571,939 opposed. During the preelection campaign, Laboulaye abandoned his more radical republican colleagues and urged a vote in favor of the new constitution, for he saw in it a genuine move toward parlimentary democracy. However he was denounced by his abandoned collegeues and in the fracas was compelled to suspend his classes at the College de France. Aftyer the plebiscite, Prime Minister Ollivier , in forming a new cabinet , seriously considered Laboulaye for a ministerial post, but the emperor was unfavorable.
When Paris was besiged during thr Franco-Prussian War, Laboulaye left the city and went to Normandy, where he organized ambulances. Upon his return , he found that his house had been occupied by Prussian troops and curiously found that they had put his wife's crucifix in a place of prominence and decorated it with boughs. The fall of the second empire breathed new life into Laboulayes's political ambitions, and he was elected to the newly established National Assembly for a Parisian constituency in the by-electoin of 2 July 1871. He took his seat with his fellow conservative republican deputies of the center gauche. Laboulaye assumed trhe chairmanship of the Parlimentary Commission on duacation and in 1873 was named to the influencial Committee of Thirty whose task was to draft a series of constitutionl docuaments that were destined to become the key provisions of the Constitution of the Third Republic. During parlimentary sessions in January 1875, Laboulaye and his ally Henri Wallon won national Assembly acceptance of a republican government for France. In February parliament passed legislation creating a second chamber - a 300 member senate , 225 of whom were to be indirectly elected by electoral colleges in the department. New laws also established the office of president of the Republic a Chamber of Deputies and the office of prime minister. In december 1875 Laboulaye was one of 75 men elected elected to be life senators. (this was a special honor) Laboulaye hailed the adoption of the new constitutional laws of France as a reflective of "the common right if free people"
In 1872 Laboulaye returned to his earlier interest in the condition of women. He demonstrated publicly his support of legal rights for women by presideing over a banquet given by the Women's Rights Association. The association advocated full legal rights and voting rights for women.
The achievements of these political aims gave Laboulaye freedim to return to his dream of building a Statue of Liberty. In 1875 granting final approval to Bartholdi's study model for the monument, Laboulaye and his liberal associates formed the Franco-American Union for the fund-raising campiagn and established its governing board, also known as the French Committee. The members included his collegues in the Senate and National Assembly. In July 1880, laboulaye ahd the Franco-American Union celebrated the completion of the campaign , having raised over 400.000 francs. But the sucess had come to late; Laboulaye did not live to come to America to unveil his Liberty Enlightening the World
Second Empire
French constitutional and political regime founded and ruled by emperor Napoleon III. Dec. 1852-Sept. 1870. Although the regime was passionately opposed on constitutinal and political grounds by legitimist monarchists, republicans, and liberals, it was nevertheless noteworthy for the development of large-scale industralization, massive improvements in communications and urban planning. The regime originated in a December 1851 coupd'etat in which Prince Louis Napoleon overthrew the democratic Second Republic , of which he was the elected president. He obtained overwhelming approval of his act through a plebiscite of 21-22 Nov. 1852
Under the second Empire, the emperor had dictatorial powers. Artical 14 of the Constitutional obliged him all members of parliment and assemblies, ministers, officers, magistrates, and civil servants to take an oath of personal allegiance to the emperor. Title 3 declared him head of state and commander of the armed forces, and it granted him extensive executive authority: the power to make war and peace , conclude treaties and alliances, make all appointments, and write up all policies and decrees. He was also given extensive legisative power: "he approves and promulgates laws and senatusd consultums" Artical 7 stated "Jusitce is administered in his name." The Emperor also had the right of declaring a state of seige in one or more departments. Cabinat ministers were not members of parliment but only imperial servants carrying out the emperors will.
Parliment consisted of three weak bodies, the popularly elected Corps Legislatif, the appointed Consil d'Etat and the Senate. which consisted of jure imperial princes, cardinals, marshals, admirals, and others appointed to the body for life by the emperor.
Between 1867 and 1870 the emperor began to democratize the constitutional system. The Second Empire ended when the emperor was taken prisoner by the enemy during the Franco-Prussian War in 1870. It was eventually replaced by the Third Republic (1875-1940)
k: The Statue of Liberty Enlightening the World, Frederic Auguste Bartholdi, (1885).
http://books.google.com/books?id=p02VNP45RdsC&printsec=frontcover&dq=statue+of+liberty&lr=&ei=tSUGSNmXI4zGyASPm42PAg#PPP7,M1
Excerpt from "The Universal Appeal of the Statue of Liberty" by Christian Blanchet Essay in The Statue of Liberty Revisited edited by Wilton S. Dillon & Neil G. Kotler (Washington, D.C.: Smithsonian Institution Press, 1994).
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New York Times Articles:
Frances Gift to America.pdf
The French Nations Gift.pdf
Bartholdi Complimented.pdf
The Bartholdi Statue An Entertainment.pdf